'Food loaf' off menu at Pa. prisons

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania state inmates are no longer being punished with the baked brown slabs known as food loaves.

The loaf was a combination of beans, rice, raw potatoes, carrots, cabbage and oatmeal.

The Department of Corrections has stopped giving the food loaves to inmates in restricted housing who misbehave with their food. Pennlive.com reports the department began replacing the food loaves late last month with bagged meals.

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The department's executive deputy secretary, Shirley Moore Smeal, says officials are trying to humanize the handling of dangerous inmates in restrictive housing.

New York did away with food loaves last year in a settlement over its treatment of inmates in solitary confinement.

John Hargreaves of the Pennsylvania Prison Society calls the decision "a step forward," saying inmates weren't happy with food loaves.